How to Turn Your Home Office Into Alessandro Michele's Gucci Studio

A step-by-step guide to translating inspiration into real life

Welcome back to Room Recipe, a column on À La Carte where we stare at an image of a room we love for a very long time, then break down its “ingredients” into specific items and themes. The goal is never to copy, but instead to get to the bottom of why certain rooms just *work* and to understand how we can translate that inspiration into real life. Past recipes have included Dakota Johnson's bedroom in the Hollywood Hills and Eliza Harris' pattern-filled living room in Connecticut (that one is free to read!), and this month we’re breaking down the ingredients for maybe my most ambitious recipe yet: Alessandro Michele’s former office at the Gucci design studio in Rome.

Creative director Alessandro Michele left Gucci in late 2022 after a seven year run that breathed new life into the brand. Design houses go through phases, and whether Alessando’s era was your cup of tea or not, you can’t deny that his playfully opulent point of view made a mark on design as a whole. After I wrote about his Roman apartment a few months ago, I got curious whether anyone had ever written anything about his workspace during the time he was at Gucci—luckily, there’s a whole article about it from 2015 on the brand’s site.

Obviously, lol that I’d even be able to break this down into something we regular folks could translate into our home offices. Alessandro’s design studio was inside of a 16th century palazzo, complete with frescoed ceilings painted by Raphael. Like, the Raphael. “I wanted to feel like I’m at home,” Michele said. “My office is a public space and my work is something I want to share.” If this is what “at home” feels like for you, dear reader, I don’t know what you’re doing here—you don’t need my help.

But one thing I really love about the space is that it is a real blend between the ornate details of the past and the tools Alessandro actually needed to do his job: a laptop, a Bose portable speaker, and a ton of reference books. There’s a conference table for meetings and a separate little seating area for a smaller group chat. What is actually in the room isn’t all that complicated or unlike an ordinary office, it’s just that it all sits inside of a historically significant container.

I was watching a Q&A video that Nate Berkus did for Architectural Digest last week where someone asked about matching their decor to the style of their house. “Why do you want to do that?” he asked. “I don’t think you should do that. I think you should create an environment that rises up to greet you, a place for experimentation, a place where your own personal style shines through. I don’t think I care if you live in a Cape Cod style house but you don’t have bowls of saltwater taffy out.”

He goes on to talk about how, when decoration feels “not real”—e.g. a sign that says “J’adore Paris!” in a suburban kitchen—that’s when things start to go awry. But if you want a French country kitchen, you can make design decisions that reflect that style that still make sense in the context of the house, and because it’s what you love and reflects a part of who you are, it’ll work. It got me thinking about how much I love these old Italian spaces and how, even though I live in a one-bedroom apartment in California, I like to nod to them through the textiles I use and the colors I gravitate towards, but you won’t find a marble bust or giant tapestry in my living room.

So while I may not be able to give you the exact roadmap to a workspace like Alessandro’s, I do think I’ve unlocked the key to bringing history and personality into any office context whether you’re in a cubicle in a high-rise, a shared studio space, or a second bedroom at home. So if the grandeur of Alessandro’s office speaks to you the way it does to me—or if you just want a list of my favorite desk supplies—read on.